Our lives have been stifled
We’re rife with tension.
Our children are condemned.
Our cries don’t get much mention.

What wild dream did you have for your life? What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed? What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been held back, held down, bound and gagged.
We’ve been stripped of what’s legit,
Throttled, bottled …and bagged.
We’ve been packaged and labelled,
We’ve been set upon the table.
The fat cats have gathered,
They’ve got the gravy boats and ladles.

We’ve been used and abused,
Mis-used and bruised.
Misunderstood, trod underfoot, and misconstrued.

The big washing machine’s
passed us through the mangle.
We’ve been wrung out by the wringer,
We’ve been strung out and strangled.

What wild dream did you have for your life? What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed? What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been caged and chained,
Maimed and made lame.
We’ve been twisted and wrenched, strained and sprained
We’ve been arranged and tamed, contained and constrained.
We’ve been estranged from our kin, cut off from our land,
Cut down in our prime, cut out of our hand.

We’ve been locked up and knocked up,
We’ve been docked and shocked.
We’ve been shut off from sunlight and chained to blocks.
We’ve been jammed in, rammed in, hemmed in and slammed in.
We’ve been managed and damaged, sandwiched in and crushed.

We’ve been force-fed and force-bled,
Medicated and sedated,
Pumped, plumped, and dumped with a diet of lead.

We’ve been shoved down and shackled and shunted along
They’ve put shutters on our minds
They shut up our songs.
They’ve shat upon and crapped upon us,
Zapped and sapped us of strength.
Hacked at us and wrapped us up on the butcher’s bench.

We’ve been corralled off and held off
And walled off in stalls.
We’ve been hauled off to the slaughterhouse
While we called out and bawled.

We’ve been rounded up and hounded, thrown around and knocked down.
We’ve been goaded and railroaded and loaded on trucks bound for town.
We’ve been towed and mowed under and snowed under with stress.
We’ve been stowed on the road where some are crushed to their death.
We’ve been jerked around and jarred, jostled and jammed.
We’ve been nabbed, grabbed and stabbed, jabbed and slammed.
We’ve been bullied and sullied, worried and hurried.
We’ve been harangued and hampered, clamped and penned.
We’ve been left perturbed and disturbed, in turmoil and trouble.
We’ve been seized with disease, left confused and muddled.
We’ve been left needing medicine, food and water.
We’ve been mauled and tortured, slaughtered and quartered.
We’ve been knocked and socked, clocked, bopped, whopped, and dropped.
We’ve been topped and lopped, sliced up and chopped.
Our blood been mopped up, our bodies sent to the shops.

What wild dream did you have for your life? What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed? What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been herded and bewildered, murdered and killed.
Stabbed and skewered, flamed and grilled.
We’ve been bludgeoned and bashed, lashed, broken and thrashed.
Smashed and gashed open, lives and hopes dashed.
We’ve been robbed and ransacked, ravaged and ruined.
Fleeced and plucked, sent to our doom.

We’ve been presumed and imposed upon
Opposed, and suppressed,
Deposed, dispossessed, truly oppressed.

While you’re inundated with inanity,
Your sanity seems more like vanity.
How can you call yourselves humanity?

My brother, Steve, and I, talking to a guy.
There’s some work he wants to offer us.
(Steve’s been struggling around work issues too).
The guy’s a brilliant young biologist.

He’s been working with trout, growing them large,
He says, up to eighty kilos.
Wow, that’s one heavy lifting job, I joke,
Imagining giving them the heave-ho.

The guy knows my joke, but knows me better,
The cap-tipping banter of one anxious about work.
Of course, I’m working with them when they’re lighter,
He says, and I, in a sudden realization, know my quirk
Of finding in images the heart of the matter.
I look inside again to what my soul calls me to.

And sunlight flashes on scales of silver,
As I lift heavy fishes and pour them on through,
To slip into streams from their large holding tanks,
And I know this is the work I will do.

Walk in the child of hills with legs that shine like apples
In pockets open to sunlight with daffodils holding the air.
Look to paper planes catching from leaves that green the blinking eyes
To butterflies lifting from waterfalls spreading fingers on the stairs.
Take chimneys dressed at daybreak passing shadows off the fields
Caught in waves at grassy ridges growing warm clouds off clear blue.
Wait near old brown bridges for shoes that hang like coloured fishes
And hide near branches folding out for worms in borrowed suits.
Show candles roaming under stars past roads that whistles turn to view
While seeds shy under fallen logs down past grey crickets hicupping.
Embrace long days at childhood’s end in meadows facing head downwind
And wrap full coats at owl’s long note in hair flung puddle-jumping.